Sochi Winter Olympics Preview: Skiing (photos)

(Watch all week on AL.com for previews of favorite Winter Olympics sports.)

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - If you want recognizable names, the skiing competitions at the 2014 Winter Olympics are the places to turn your attention. Even with favorite (and girlfriend of Tiger Woods) Lindsay Vonn out of the Games due to a knee injury, there are plenty of celebrities to make the sport must-see tv.

Former Olympic gold medalists Bode Miller, Ted Ligety and Julia Mancuso, as well as world champion Mikaela Shiffrin, headline the alpine skiing team. Other athletes--such as the aptly-named Arielle Gold and fellow snowboarder Jaimie Anderson (snowboarding is officially part of the U.S. Ski team)--may be household names before the Games are over.

But who will bring home the gold?

According to Doug Hair of the Cloudmont Ski Resort in Mentone, Alabama, those familiar names are a good place to start.

"Ted Ligety could medal in three events, and Bode Miller is back and has won five medals in past Olympics," he said.

Ligety was the 2006 Olympic combined champion and won a historic three gold medals at the 2013 World Championship (the first male athlete to do so since 1968); Miller is a five-time Olympic medalists, having won gold, silver and bronze in 2010.

"The women's team has first-time Olympian Mikaela Shiffrin, who won the slalom overall title last year and is the favorite in that event," he said. "And Julia Mancuso has won three medals. She always shows up big at big events."

If you enjoy watching the moguls competition, Hair said Hannah Kearney is the one to watch.

"She's back to defend her gold medal from 2010," he said.

If you use the cover of Sports Illustrated to gauge an athlete's popularity and expected performance, be sure to tune in to cover girls Anderson and Gold when they compete in snowboarding.

Anderson is the most successful women's slopestyle snowboarder in history and won four of the five Grand Prix qualifying events to punch her ticket to Sochi, where the sport will debut. Gold, the youngest member of the women's snowboarding team, will be competing alongside her brother Taylor (a halfpipe snowboarder) in her first Olympics.